WN will be bringing their three year partnership with Volaris to an end. Once WN purchased FL this was writing on the wall, as many of the WN - Y4 codeshare routes compete with FL routes and with the full system codeshare around the corner it wouldn't make any sense to keep the partnership going. After 02/22 WN will no longer sell tickets on Y4

Plus Y4 seems to be struggling a bit with their ops these days -- as discussed occasionally on a few threads in the last 6 months or so -- and in light of the other considerations already mentioned in this thread, it doesn't surprise me at all for this to happen.

Quoting apodino (Reply 9):Could Volaris pull out of MDW because of this? One would assume the only reason they served MDW is because of the big WN operation there?

I don't think Y4 did a single thing b/c of WN; the flights are almost entirely local traffic. WN wouldn't make an iota of difference to the Y4 network, and vice versa. If FL can run a 7% LF on AUSHOU, imagine how little traffic Y4 was getting from WN.

Quoting apodino (Reply 9):Could Volaris pull out of MDW because of this? One would assume the only reason they served MDW is because of the big WN operation there?

No, not in the slightest. The WN-Y4 partnership via Sabre was mostly smoke and mirrors to begin with, as was the WN-WS partnership/codeshare (which never even materialized). Not much was ever fully realized and it's been clear for awhile that with WN migrating to Amadeus Altea, any future terms with Y4 would be unlikely.

Volaris has been expanding, rather than contracting, their transborder network and I have no reason to doubt that Chicago remains a critical piece of their network.

Y4's push into the US has been purely a direct result of the healthy growth experienced by the Mexican aviation industry. The collapse of MX created a giant void in the US-Mexico transborder market, and the majority of this lost market share was recouped by US carriers rather than Mexican ones, as the former had the scale and bandwidth to absorb the extra capacity. The way things stand, US airlines account for approximately 71% of the transborder market share, and recent history has shown that Mexican carriers are eager to start bridging gaps, however ambitious that may sound.

Moreover, the Volaris flight strategically has chosen to fly into MDW, rather than ORD, given that Midway is located much closer to the heavily populated Mexican communities such as Pilsen and neighboring areas on the Southwest side of Chicago. This works very well for O&D traffic between Chicago and Mexico.

I can vouch for Southwest and Volaris' codeshare being completely irrelevant. From the ramp side, I can count on half of one hand how many times I've taken bags over to Y4 over the period of the cs. I would estimate that maybe 100 people EVER have utilized it at MDW. It's so seldom that most people have long forgotten that there ever was any sort of cs.

You don't really need a source to see that this is most likely the case.

Poke around www.southwest.com and do a search for Volaris. The last news item dates from 2011, the Southwest 'Corporate Fact Sheet' buries Volaris near the very bottom of the page under Southwest.com, NOT the cities served.

Having worked with WN during the Icelandair code-share, it was quite infrequently that any bags were transferred at all, in either direction.

It appears that Southwest is going to let this fade quietly into the background.

We probably won't get any grand announcement soon as in the interim, they aren't going to turn away 'free' revenue they may inadvertently get. Nor are they going sell too hard lest it impact any Airtran revenue.

As you all know, the acquisition of AirTran changed our strategy for international flying. With Southwest’s continued focus on growing the AirTran near-international service, which will eventually become Southwest international service, we made the decision to put our efforts toward combining the Southwest network with AirTran instead of continuing to grow our relationship with Volaris.

While we have enjoyed working with our friends at Volaris, the decision has been made to end the Partnership. Beginning on February 22, 2013, we will no longer sell Volaris. Although new bookings are not going to be accepted, Customers holding tickets for future travel will be able to contact Southwest and Volaris for assistance through August 9, 2013.

As our work with Volaris ends, we will begin to focus on opportunities to sell Southwest Customers international service through the combined Southwest/AirTran network.

Many thanks for the part you have played in our relationship with Volaris. You were instrumental in our success as we introduced Customers in the Mexico market to Southwest Airlines. I hope you are as excited as I am about our future international opportunities.

Quoting xespecialist (Reply 18):Has it ever occurred to those "source please" folks, that with the advent of social media usage policies our friends 'in the know' have to be mindful of the manner in which they share insight?

Yes.

Quoting xespecialist (Reply 18):Southwest in particular has updated their policies recently limiting what employees are able to post online for competitive reasons. Badgering OP's will get you nowhere. Whatever happened to taking things at face value?

As a 21 year SWA employee, I'm abundantly clear on this. I'm also clear that "people" can assert lots of things on public forums. However a reference to an origin when the information seems to be sole-source, is expected, and is a far cry from "badgering".

Thanks for the source 329.

[Edited 2013-02-07 02:29:13]

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